Long live the king
by sophgoph
Summary: Firelord Zuko has to confront an overwhelming mix of emotions when he learns his imprisoned, abusive father is going to die. Takes place after the show and comics are ended, maybe 10 years after canon. Not romance heavy, but some Maiko so shippers and anti-shippers be warned.
1. Chapter 1

Fire Lord Zuko tried to concentrate on his work that day but couldn't. He didn't have the energy. He fell asleep during his meeting with his financial adviser, and barely wrote a word when trying to respond to a letter from the governor of the southern province. The news sat in his chest like heartburn that wouldn't go away. All day long he felt nauseous.

When he finally retired for the evening, he did not join his wife in bed, but instead sat on his desk nearby wasting the lamp oil. He had to write a letter to his sister, to tell her what he had found out. The words did not come. He just stared at the parchment with his brush in his hand.

Mai tossed and turned, trying to block out the light, annoyed she couldn't enjoy her husband's company at the moment. But she understood him well enough to know that his insomnia was habitual. It meant there was probably something on his mind. "Zuko," she said, "take off your formal robes. Wash your face. Come to bed. Whatever the problem is, you won't solve it by staring down at that paper."

"In a minute," he said, as if he hadn't really heard her.

Mai sat up. She sighed. "You can't do this to me, Zuko. You can't leave me in the dark while I watch you suffer. I know its easier for you to block people out, but... if you can't come to bed, can you at least tell me what's wrong?"

He turned around to face her and took a deep breath. "I did something you've asked me not to do. I went to visit my father."

Mai was silent for a moment. "Why?"

"Because I got a letter from the prison warden asking me to. I won't have many more chances to make it right with him. I want to make the time count."

"What are you talking about. Who said anything about making it right with him? Zuko, you know that probably will never happen."

"But I have to try, Mai," Zuko said. He rubbed his forehead. "He's going to die."

Ozai was not allowed to send letters from the prison. Zuko had laid these rules firmly before Ozai even went to trial. If Ozai were allowed to write freely, he could slip messages to his followers in the form of codes and ciphers. The only people he was allowed to contact were his immediate family and his legal counsel. If he wanted to do that, he needed the prison warden to write the letter for him.

The letter Zuko got was from his father, but in the warden's hand. The warden had very little time to do such things, and his father had very little incentive to contact his son. So for Zuko to get the letter in the first place was a sign something important was going on. The letter had been short, curt, vague. Only a couple sentences asking for an immediate visit.

Zuko and Mai had made an agreement before their marriage, that Zuko would have little to no contact with his father. Zuko had actually visited his father frequently at the beginning of the prison sentence. Zuko didn't really know why he did, it wasn't like he enjoyed his father's company. Sometimes he came asking for advice. Sometimes he came for the chance to speak his mind freely, which he could never do growing up. Sometimes he did it out of a sense of duty; it was his _father_ , the man who had given him life and provided for his physical needs as a child. But Mai had noticed the visits took a toll on Zuko. Not only was his father's advice corrupting and dangerously bad, but Zuko would often destroy himself in anger and self loathing if the visits went poorly. For the sake of the nation he ruled, and for his mental health, Zuko could not see his father.

Because of this, Zuko almost wrote back to the warden to decline. He also considered not writing, and not showing up. He considered speaking to Mai first, but knew she would say no. Curiosity over the reason for the visit request eventually won him over. Why would his father actually ask him for a visit? And why was it important enough the warden agreed to help send the request? So Zuko canceled his afternoon appointments and walked over to the prison in the Capitol city.

Before he arrived, he ran dialogue through his head, preparing himself for what ridiculous thing his father might say, what insults he might throw or what corruption he would try to inflict. It caused Zuko's heart to pound.

Even though Zuko arrived in his Fire Lord's formal robes, the guard gave him no special treatment. Zuko was required to hand over the dagger he kept in his belt, and to sign his name in the log book. The lack of special treatment—for the purpose of security—was another rule Zuko had imposed. They couldn't take the chance of any impostors sneaking in and helping Ozai escape.

The guard led Zuko down the hallway, but instead of turning left, to where Ozai was usually kept, the guard turned right and headed up a flight of stairs.

"Wait, you didn't move Ozai, did you?" Zuko said.

The guard turned to answer. "If you're upset about the move, I can inform the warden. But we thought it was necessary."

"Was he causing trouble with the other inmates?"

"Look, I actually don't know much about what's going on... and if I did... well it might be best if you hear it from Ozai himself." The guard handed Zuko a torch from the wall, and opened a heavy door. "I'll give you two a moment alone."

Zuko looked around for a minute. The new cell was a lot warmer than the other had been, mostly because it was above ground. But Zuko also noticed the area outside the cell had an ash-covered alcove, for a fireplace. The move could hardly be called special treatment, but Zuko had to wonder about the sudden extra care for his father's comfort.

"You brought tea last time." Ozai stirred from the cot in the back corner of the cell. He looked nothing like the virile warrior king who had been thrown into this prison. His hair had turned gray and had retreated farther up his scalp. His rough-spun robes hung off bony shoulders. But he hadn't forgotten what it meant to be royalty. His mannerisms were no less intimidating.

Zuko inhaled and stood up straighter, preparing himself for an argument. "You only asked me to come. You didn't ask me to bring anything. Not that I would have if you had."

"Oh, Heavens," Ozai said. "What did you come here for last time... Something about that girl of yours. Mai. I cannot believe you married Governor Ukano's daughter. Such a homely girl, and not even a fire bender. You could have at least asked me for some suggestions before you got married. And what was going on with Mai when you came...? Yes... that's right... you came because she was pregnant. Azula convinced you that I deserved to know, so you came to tell me. How old is that baby now, Zuko? She's what, three? Four? And you haven't brought her to visit me?"

Zuko was growing impatient. "Izumi is five, and she and Mai are better off not having anything to do with you. I haven't got all day, Ozai. What was it you wanted to talk to me about?"

"You haven't come to see me in five years, and now you're in such a hurry," Ozai said. "For the love of heaven, Zuko. It was bad enough throwing me into this hole in the ground. But to forget I exist is an entirely different cruelty."

"A mercy compared to what you put me through."

"It's not a competition," Ozai said. "I'm simply saying, it would be nice if..." He stopped, interrupted by a cough. It was raspy, loud, and it shook his whole body as if he were being beaten. When the cough ended, the old tyrant had trouble catching his breath. It suddenly made more sense why they had moved him to the more comfortable room. "Whatever," Ozai said, wiping the saliva from the side of his mouth. Zuko thought he saw a tinge of blood on the old man's lip, but only briefly. "If I want someone to bring me tea and talk to me civilly, I can have the warden write Azula."

"What do you want, Ozai!" Zuko said.

"I want to know what on this demon-ridden earth is going on outside these bars. I just asked you about my grandchild."

"Izumi is off limits!"

"Obstinate as always, aren't you Zuko!"

Zuko stepped forward. "You're not in a position to demand anything from me, old man!"

The guard cautiously peeked into the room, in response to the rising voices. The guards were used to dealing with spats between inmates and visitors. Zuko wasn't sure how they would respond if the Fire Lord himself attacked one of their charges. He was very much tempted to find out.

Ozai yelled banged his hands on the bars. Zuko stepped back. He hated that his father could still illicit a reaction from him. The old tyrant yelled again and sat back down. "Damn these walls!" Ozai said. "And damn these guards for not telling me anything!"

"I shouldn't have come. I don't know why I came," Zuko said. He turned to leave.

"Zuko don't you dare leave me here!" Ozai said. "I raised you. I provided for you. I taught you everything you know. I am your father! And I deserve your respect!"

Zuko kept walking.

Ozai yelled again. But then he said something Zuko never expected. "Please!"

Zuko turned.

"Please!" The look was one Zuko had never seen on his father's face before. Earnest, desperate. "Please, Zuko. Just listen to me."

"What?" Zuko said.

The old tyrant took a deep breath, which was difficult for him. It almost sent him into another coughing fit. "I need to talk to you. And I won't have many more chances to talk to you again. So please, Zuko. Don't leave."

Zuko wanted to turn and leave anyway. He felt like that would have been the smartest choice. But the fact his father, someone who was so used to the world bowing to him and catering to his every need, had actually uttered the word "please..." Once again, Zuko was overwhelmed by curiosity. So he sat back down in front of his father's cell and waited.

"I want to know what's going on outside," Ozai said. "I want to know what disgraceful thing your mother is doing now. I want to know if Azula's still going to see that physician for her hallucinations. I want you to bring your child to see me. I want you to tell me how the affairs of my Fire Nation are going after all these years of your mediocre leadership."

"You don't care about any of those things," Zuko said.

"I don't have anything else to occupy my mind," Ozai said. "There's nothing for me to do in here."

"Damn it!" Zuko said. "Please, can you tell me what is really going on?"

Ozai clenched his fists. He was quiet for a minute, avoiding eye contact. The truth was infuriating to him. If he still had been a fire bender, perhaps his hands would have been steaming. "At first it they thought it was another one of those fevers the rats carry between the cells. They have enough of those in here. The prison physician is overworked and under-trained as it is," Ozai said. "Not that you, the Fire Lord himself, has the power to do anything about that."

"Save the snark," Zuko said. "It isn't helpful."

Ozai huffed. "The prison physician was clueless. So they called in our family physician. He took one look at me, and he knew. It is the same thing that killed your uncle and your grandmother. And if some savvy assassin doesn't get to you first, it is the same thing that will probably kill you." Ozai almost laughed. "For years I tore out my hair over the traits I failed to pass on to you. My intelligence, my work ethic, my wit. You were born with none of those. Wouldn't it be ironic if this was the one thing you did get from me?"

Zuko sat very still. "How long... how long do they think it will take?"

"Ha! Anxious to be rid of me, aren't you, Zuko?"

"Just answer the question."

"A few weeks."

"Does Azula know?" Zuko asked.

"I've been meaning to get the warden to write her for me. Of course, he will write it all wrong, he will put it to her in a way that will absolutely destroy her. She never used to be sensitive, but she is now. She has enough burdening her, Zuko, after what you did to her the day of the comet... It would be easier if _I could simply do it myself_."

"I didn't do anything to her! I only..." Zuko stopped himself. This wasn't the time for an argument. "No. Ozai. The rules do not change, even in sickness. No parchment, no ink."

Ozai exhaled.

Father and son sat on opposite sides of the bars, not looking at each other, not speaking. Zuko wasn't sure what else he should say. But then it dawned on him, he didn't actually know what he was supposed to think. He didn't know how he felt about this news. He wasn't sure what he was going to tell Mai, his friends, his family. He wasn't sure how he would feel going to sleep tonight.

Ozai broke the silence. He was angry. "After everything I did for you, after everything I gave you. Including your very life. This... this is what you do to me? You're going to let me die in here, alone, disgraced?"

Zuko didn't answer that.

"Whatever I did to you, to this nation... It was so long ago. I'm an old man now. You've had more than ten years to forgive me."

"And you've had just as long to apologize," Zuko said. He felt a little sick to his stomach. "But you never did." Zuko stood up. He felt like his body weight a thousand pounds as he did it. "Ozai, I have to go now. I have to go home to my wife and child. I promised myself I would treasure them in a way you didn't treasure your own family. And you have a lot of gall asking for forgiveness." He turned to leave, this time with conviction that he would not allow himself to stay.

"Promise me you'll come see me again before I go," his father called after him.

But Zuko didn't promise anything.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Mai and Zuko sat on the bed together, sharing a bottle of rice wine

"I'm sorry," Zuko said. "We made an agreement, that I would stay away from him, and I broke it."

Mai swirled her drink in her cup and sighed. "You should have talked to me first. It wasn't my intention to prevent you from having any contact with your family at all, but it does bother me you went back on your word," she said. "But, I guess that's an argument we will need to have at a different time. You must have a lot on your mind."

"No, you're right. I shouldn't have gone to see him," Zuko said. "I didn't want to know this. I wish... It would have been easier if he had just died and I had just... found out about it after the fact. Because then I wouldn't have so many decisions to make."

"What sort of decisions?" Mai said. "He doesn't have any earthly possessions that need to change hands. The prison usually makes its own arrangements for burials."

"No," Zuko said. "Things I can only decide to do before hand. Am I going to keep visiting him? Am I going to let him meet Izumi? Am I going to try to... I don't know... let him leave on good terms?"

Mai wrinkled her eyebrows. "Wait... you want to bring our daughter to..."

"She does have a right to know about her family, who she is and where she comes from, the good, the bad, and the ugly. It would be her only chance," Zuko said. "And also, he did ask."

"He... asked... and because he asked..." Mai sighed. "See, this is what I was worried about. This is why I told you not to go and see him!"

"The visit went perfectly fine, Mai. I don't think I've hurt anyone by it."

"No..." She huffed. "Because he's... intoxicating. Because every time you see him, you start... I don't know... you get pulled in. You start forgetting all the awful things he did. You start to feel sorry for him, being locked up and lonely. You start trying to... fix it."

"I fixed it years ago. He's locked up. The war is over. He can't hurt anyone ever again."

"You fixed the physical, immediate problems. But you can't fix the aftermath. The reason I don't think you should see him is because every time you do, you start thinking you can fix it. It eats you up. It makes you miserable. And then you start blaming yourself. And that causes you to try to live up to him and his expectations, and..."

"Mai, that's the last thing I am trying to do. The last thing I want to do in the whole world is be something he would be proud of. You're not making any sense."

"But you are, Zuko. It's like... It's like you're trying to hunt the Avatar all over again." She took a deep breath. "All this talk of 'making things right' and 'letting him leave on good terms.' It's a fantasy, Zuko. It's not real. It's not possible. Not with someone like him. You tried all your life as a child to do that. What makes you think you can do it now?"

"I'm the one with the power now," Zuko said.

"When you give in to those fantasies, he feeds off of that. That's what he did your entire growing-up, to control you and your sister, nurturing those fantasies of one day getting love and attention. And it worked."

"But what's the alternative, Mai?" he said. "The alternative is to just hate him. I can't do that. I mean... I sort of do," Zuko said. "No. I actually do hate him. A lot... but I know it's wrong. It's wrong to let myself get overwhelmed with hate. It's wrong to hold onto wrongs and never forgive. It's not what's going to make me a better person."

"Why not?" Mai said. "Why is it wrong? I hate him."

"But you're not his kid."

"Zuko. I hate him every single day. Every time I look at your face and see what he did to you. Every time I see how he destroyed Azula's spirit, forcing her to have to live in that mental institution, I hate him. Every time I look around this country, and see how divided it is and how hard it's been to bring in and era of peace, I hate him. Maybe not in the sense I wish evil upon him, but in the sense I can look at evil for what it is. I don't get it confused. It's okay to be angry at him. It's healthy, in fact."

"Mai, but what about your dad? He did some less than honorable things. And you still visit with him, and talk to him. What if it were your dad who was dying in that cell?"

"My dad was good to me Zuko."

"All the time?"

"No, but he never crossed the line into cruelty. He took care of me."

Zuko sighed. "Mai, my dad took care of me too." He took another deep breath. "I can't ever just sit down and let myself hate him, as easy as you make it sound. Because, while there is a lot of stuff that happened that should make me hate him, there was a lot of stuff that happened growing up that..." Zuko almost smiled. "That actually was kind of cool. Like... he would take Azula and me out onto the lawn and teach us fire bending tricks. It made my mother furious because of course we would practice them indoors and something would get burned or broken. Or... when we went to see the plays on Ember Island. You came with us to a couple of those I think. Whenever the acting was bad or the story had a plot hole, he would lean into our ears to crack jokes. He had you laughing just as hard. He wasn't angry all the time. Hell, I don't think anyone would have the energy to be angry all the time."

"A few good memories don't excuse him from all the bad ones he also gave you."

"No," Zuko said. He took a sip of the rice wine and closed his eyes. "It just made the bad memories worse. Because we knew... we knew that the good times could come back... maybe if we just knew what buttons to push and which levers to pull, or maybe if we just made him happy enough... or maybe if we just did exactly what we were told all the time... then maybe we could bring that good side of him back."

Mai looked down. "Azula always talked like that," she said. "When it was her and me and Ty Lee... she always talked about your father like that. She always complained when he was in a bad mood, which was almost all the time but she always had these elaborate schemes to cheer him up. And Ty Lee and I could never understand why she worked so hard. I was young at the time, and I thought it was because she was a good, obedient child and I wasn't. But it drove her..." She raised her eyebrows. "It drove her literally insane."

"And that's why this is so hard for me," Zuko said. "I thought my father's death would be easier than my uncles, because I would miss my father less. But what's making it hard is that... I'm not feeling the way I expected to feel. I expected to feel relieved, and on one hand I am. But I'm also... I'm actually worried about missing him. Not because he deserves it, but because of... that one stupid time when I was a kid he taught me a fire bending trick. That's who I see some times when I go and visit him in prison. Not the tyrant bastard I grew to seem him as when I became an adult, but as the dad I worshiped when I was little."

"Look, Zuko," Mai said. "Yeah. I get it. It makes sense. I guess I can't tell you what will make you feel better. You're right. This might be your last chance to make some sort of peace, or get some kind of closure. But..." She put his hand on his cheek and turned his head to look him in the eye. "Don't get your hopes too high. You're father nearly destroyed you because of all the impossible expectations he put on you. If you go to him with impossible expectations of your own, guess what... that's not going to hurt him, it will hurt you too. If you need to visit him, then do that. If you need to stay away, then do that. But please, take care of yourself first, okay?"

"I promise," he said.

"And remember, you don't have to deal with this alone." She leaned forward and kissed her husband tenderly. The two of them put their glasses on the table, snuffed out the lamp, and finally relaxed together in the dark.


	3. Chapter 3

As soon as Izumi had learned to speak, Zuko would put her on his shoulders, take her down the halls of the palace, show her the portraits and tapestries, and introduce her to the Fire Lords of old. Zuko told her stories about each king, how one had been known for leading the Fire Nation through a famine, how another had been known as a great patron of the arts. Izumi could name them all, and when Zuko's friends came to visit she would take them by the hand and lead them on tours of her own. She could take them to her grandfather's portrait, name the dates during which he ruled, and explain the symbols on the portrait, like the gears of industry and the setting sun. But on the details, the true details, Zuko and Mai had kept their young child in the dark.

Zuko wasn't sure why he seriously considered his father's request to take Izumi to the prison for a visit. He discussed it for hours with Mai, and they agreed the controlled setting would pose very little risk to Izumi's safety or well-being. Izumi would not be swept under her grandfather's toxic influence in just one brief visit, and they could always leave if something went wrong. But Zuko knew that seeing Ozai in prison would prompt questions from his daughter. And after keeping Izumi innocent for her entire short life, Zuko wasn't sure how he should answer them in an age-appropriate way.

Mai told him not to worry about that. "When she's ready to know, she'll ask. Don't worry about bringing up the details with her before she's ready."

"But when she does ask," Zuko said. "Will _I_ be ready to answer? That's the real question."

When Zuko finally plucked up the courage to see his father again, Mai and Izumi accompanied him. Mai was sweating pebbles as they walked. She had never been to the Capitol's prison at all, and she wasn't sure what she would see there. Zuko had Izumi on his shoulders, as was their habit. And he tried to use the short walk to prepare her for what she was going to see.

"You know the portraits on the wall, right Izumi?" he said.

"I know ALL of them!" Izumi said. "And I don't even have to look at them to say all their names. I can do it just in my head. I forget some of the middle ones. But yours is the last one. So I can remember that."

"Yeah," Zuko said. "And you know the one before mine."

"Azulon," Izumi said.

"After him. You're one off."

"Ozai," Izumi recited. Her voice crackled with energy, pride in her ability to remember. "Ruled for nine years. Built the factories in the southern provinces. Has a town named after him in the north which was founded in his honor."

Zuko wondered if he should turned around. At this point, Izumi knew her grandfather only as a figure from history, with no emotion behind that knowledge.

Izumi continued. "Known for being one of the most contro..." she stumbled on the difficult word. She was, after all, speaking from memorization and not true understanding. "Contrassal. controval..."

"Controversial," Zuko said. "It means some people like him, some people don't. And it it makes people argue."

"Why wouldn't anyone like him?"

Zuko felt his heart sink a little. Izumi had asked. She was ready to know. He didn't have to tell her everything, though he could at least answer part of her question. But the words didn't come to him. He looked over toward Mai, hoping she would help him out.

"Because he was one fucking bastard," is what Mai muttered under her breath, but she couldn't say that out right, so she left the question unanswered.

When they reached the prison, Izumi was afraid to go past the guards. The dark frightened her. She clung onto her father's robes with a vice-like grip. As they made their way up to Ozai's prison cell, Mai cemented her face. It always impressed Zuko how she could look so fearless, even when she wasn't. If she had second thoughts about this visit, she didn't express them.

Zuko entered the doorway first. He wasted no time with formalities. "You asked to see her, Old Man. So I brought her. It took my wife a great deal of convincing to allow this. So for the love of heaven, be civilized for once in your life."

The old tyrant looked up from his cup of water and huffed. "Do you want me to ask the guards to prepare a feast for them?"

"Heavens, Zuko, are you sure that's the same piece of garbage you threw in here?" Mai said. "He's aged like rotting meat."

"Good to see you too, Mai," Ozai said. "Sorry I missed the wedding. I do enjoy watching my son make ridiculous mistakes."

Zuko rolled his eyes. He called Izumi over to his side.

The young girl and the old man stared at each other for a moment.

Izumi tugged at her father's hand. "What am I supposed to do?"

"So?" Zuko said to Ozai. "Do you have any thing you want to say to her? Or did I drag my child into this hole in the ground for nothing?"

The old tyrant glared at Zuko, and then turned to the girl. He eyed the child carefully, looking her up and down. "Do you know who I am, girl?"

Izumi wrinkled her tiny eyebrows. "Dad said we were going to meet someone from the portraits on the wall."

"He left my portrait up, did he now?" Ozai leaned back and crossed his arms. "Finally, some respect. Your father was a very disrespectful child, did you know that?"

Zuko stiffened. He was about ready to scoop Izumi up in his arms and remove her.

"How would you know?" Izumi said. "You weren't there."

"Because Zuko is my son. Which makes me your grandfather. Heavens, Zuko. You could have bothered with a proper introduction."

Izumi narrowed her eyes. "Ozai in the portrait isn't old."

"It was a long time ago that portrait was made, girl."

"Izumi wasn't sure she believed the old man. "Is that right? Is he telling the truth, Dad?"

Zuko nodded. Even admitting this man was his father was painful for him.

"Tell me, Izumi, are you a fire bender?"

She nodded. "Are you?"

The old man laughed. "I was. I'm not allowed to do that anymore."

Izumi nodded thoughtfully. "I'm not allowed to either. At least not in the house. I am allowed to do it outside."

"Are you any good?"

"I know one form where I can make a really big one, and I can make a tiny little flame so I can read books when I'm supposed to be sleeping."

Well, that explained the soot marks Zuko had seen around Izumi's bed.

"Can you show me, girl?"

Izumi's face lit up. Another chance to show off something she had learned. She looked over at her mother to see if it was okay, even though they were indoors. Mai nodded. And Izumi illuminated the room around them with what she could do. But Zuko was uncomfortable. As a child he had always been eager to show his father whatever fire bending forms he had learned, usually only to have them criticized, but sometimes, _sometimes_ , in return for praise which had felt like music on Zuko's young ears. Zuko felt sick remembering how unhappy he had made himself trying to please his father. He remembered what Mai had warned him about. Of course, that was what Ozai cared about, Izumi's ability to fire bend. How else would he gauge the child's value?

"She certainly doesn't have true talent like Azula," Ozai said. "But she certainly is better than you were, Zuko. Girl! Keep your hands together! It will give you more control."

"That's enough of that, Izumi," Zuko said. I think the old man knows what fire bending looks like. He certainly has used enough of it in his time." Zuko finally picked her up.

"Wait. We can't go yet, Dad. I have a question. Old guy. If you are Ozai, why don't people like you? Why are you... controversial?"

The hair raised on the back of Zuko's neck. The room went quiet. But Izumi stood her ground.

"My dad said that there were a lot of people who didn't like you. What did you do?"

The old tyrant turned to Zuko. "Zuko, what sort of artificial history have you been  
teaching her?"

"I don't know, _father_ ," Zuko said, his voice dripping with vitriol. "Maybe you can answer the question. It might be her only chance to ever hear your side of the story, _after all._ "

Ozai took a deep breath, which meant Izumi's answer would have to wait till he finished coughing. Amazing how he could make even a cough sound angry. But then he finished, and wiped his mouth. "Izumi, one day you will be Fire Lord, is that true?"

"That's what my dad says."

"Well, I'll tell you a secret. From one Fire Lord to another. There will always be people who don't like you. Always. But they don't matter, because they're not in charge," Ozai said. "Of course, until the day the tides turn, and you're not in charge anymore either."

"What does that mean?" Izumi said.

"Well," Ozai said. " _I'm_ not in charge anymore."

Izumi wrinkled her eye brows, not sure she understood. "And then they put you in jail? Because of the stuff you did when you were in charge. Why did they put you in here? Did you do something bad?"

"What I did," Ozai said. "I did my job, is what I did. And some people didn't like that. Your father didn't like that."

Zuko felt his entire body go stiff like cold steel. He repositioned his daughter on his hip. "Say goodbye, Izumi."

"Bye," Izumi said, obediently.

Zuko glared at Ozai, and left the room with his child in his arms.

"Take care of my boy, Mai," Ozai said. "Don't let him screw up his life too badly."

"I do a better job than you did," Mai replied, following her husband outside.

Ozai actually laughed. Zuko closed the door to the room with his father's cell, barely able to contain his rage.

It was almost dark as they walked home. Zuko wanted to walk in silence, but Izumi strolled along behind him, asking a ton of questions. He let Mai answer some of them, but Mai had told him that Izumi would only ask questions when she was ready to know. It was his job to answer, as difficult as it was.

"Was he old like that when he was your dad, when you were little like me?" Izumi asked Zuko.

"No," Zuko said, his voice low, distant. "I was your age and he was my age."

"Okay," Izumi said, digesting that answer. She looked worried. "Are... when you get old, are you going to have to go to jail too?"

"Hopefully not," Zuko said. "In the Fire Nation, we have rules, and we have laws. And the law says only bad people are put in prison."

Izumi was only five years old. Her idea of right and wrong was a simple one. She understood no gray, and didn't understand the difference between the authority of her parents, and the authority of higher laws and morals. The idea that jails were for bad people was familiar, but still the trip to visit Ozai in prison had confused her. Zuko once again wondered if the visit had been wise.

Zuko took a deep breath. "Izumi, remember how we talked about what it meant to be a leader?"

Izumi nodded slowly.

"When you're a leader, it's your job to take care of people. You have to make lots of decisions every day. And you have to try and help as many people as you can with your decisions. The things you decide affect everyone. If you don't make good decisions, people get hurt. If your a good leader, you work very hard to make sure you make the best decisions so it can make everyone's life better. If you're a bad leader, you don't care about how you affect others. You just do whatever you want. Does this make sense to you, Izumi?"

"No," Izumi said.

"Good leaders help everyone. Bad leaders just try to help themselves. Ozai was a bad leader. So people don't like him. And we had to put him in jail." Even in such simple terms, it was hard for him to talk about. "Being a dad is like being a leader. Some dads are good, and some are bad. Good dad's love their children, and take care of them. Even when they're angry. Good dad's don't hurt their children."

"He hurt you?"

Zuko sighed. "Yes."

Zuko braced himself, afraid Izumi would ask for details, but she didn't. She wasn't ready. That was fine with him.

Izumi went quiet. It didn't make any sense to her. Her tiny eyebrows were knitted together. It didn't make any sense to Zuko either, though he had spent his entire adult life trying to figure it out.


	4. Chapter 4

When his uncle had been about to die, Zuko had made a point to visit every day. And the effort had been worth it, clinging on to those last few moments together and enjoying every second. Zuko did not make any such effort with his father. He was torn however, between the urgency of visiting before he died, and his desire to avoid the man. But Zuko did visit, perhaps twice a week. It was his duty, he decided.

Once or twice Azula accompanied him.

Azula and Ozai could converse with ease. They would go on and on about fire bending, or politics, or history. Azula knew how to mirror their father, knew how to finish his sentences, and knew how even to illicit a laugh from him every now and then. Sometimes, Zuko, trying to sound familial, would attempt to add to the conversation, citing a book he had read, or something that had happened from his own experience, and the two of them would tell him he was wrong and would cut him off like a loose thread. It was the same dynamic they'd had when Zuko was a teenager. On those few days the three of them had shared an evening meal, when Ozai hadn't secluded himself in his office. Years had passed, circumstances had changed, but the conversations sounded exactly the same, and they still left Zuko feeling as uneasy as ever. Jealousy raged within Zuko, even after all these years, of the semi-decent relationship the two of them had.

When Zuko visited his father alone, it was much quieter. He missed Azula actually, wishing she was there to break the tension. There wasn't much to talk about, at least nothing they hadn't tried to talk about before. Zuko had long ago giving up asking for an apology, or even trying to make his father see his point of view. They couldn't discuss memories from Zuko's childhood, because there was no telling which memories were safe and which would start arguments. Mostly they just sat, opposite sides of the bars, sipping tepid tea, contemplating the idea of no longer having to deal with each other in the near future.

Zuko took on the role of news reporter, reciting facts about the world outside. That seemed safe. As long as he wasn't talking about himself, he could avoid criticism.

"My mother's contemplating whether or not she wants to make an appearance," Zuko said. His words felt wooden in the back of his throat, artificial. His back was perfectly straight. He avoided eye contact.

"Here?" the old tyrant said.

"Yes," Zuko answered, clinically. "She wrote back after I told her of your condition. She... isn't sure what she wants to say. She's busy these days you know. Remember, I gave her that position as Minister of the Arts. She works harder than I do."

"That can't be difficult," Ozai said.

Zuko let it slide. He had let several comments like that slide this afternoon alone.

"She wants to start a theater festival in the Capital City next fall. Do you want me to get a message to her before she comes?"

"If I have something to say to her, I'll say it to her directly. And if she doesn't come, she doesn't want to hear it."

"Fair enough," Zuko said.

Then the silence of the prison around them spoke its turn, waiting to be interrupted.

"And the instigators in the eastern islands? Have they been suppressed?"

"They weren't instigators, they were protesters," Zuko said. "I have a draft of a new law written up that should satisfy them. Even now, you're still interested in politics?"

"I don't know why. My opinion doesn't matter."

"Well, that situation is resolved, and I managed to do it _my_ way. You don't believe me, but I actually am very good at my job."

"So was I," Ozai said.

Again. Silence. Zuko fiddled his thumbs together. "I think I should go," he said, his voice still sounding wooden. "I have work to do."

"Yes," the old tyrant said, "You probably do." He descending into a fit of coughing.

Zuko got to his feet. He took the tea cups and put them back on the tray. He didn't say goodbye before he left, even though he knew it might be the last time they would speak.

* * *

Zuko received a letter from the warden a week later. He felt the world swirling around him as he read it, as if he were stuck in a hurricane. But he didn't feel any particular emotion he could put his finger on. He handed the letter to Mai and let her read it for herself, too overwhelmed to put the news into words.

Mai raised her eyebrows when she was done with the letter, and folded it up and handed it back. She was actually happy about the news. The bastard was dead. But she knew for her husband, it wasn't that simple.

"You know," Zuko told Mai. "I wish he'd been able to hold out just a little longer."

"You're not glad it's over?" Mai said.

"No... I am... I'm certainly glad I never have to visit him again or hear his voice again... but... If he had just held out for a couple more weeks, a couple more days, another hour even... maybe it would have given him time to come to his senses. Maybe he would've had time to acknowledge all the damage he did. And I guess he could have offered me some closure."

"People don't change," Mai said. "More time wouldn't have made much of a difference."

"I changed," Zuko said.

"When you were young and impressionable and were still finding yourself. But we're talking about an old man."

"I know. I know that's something I never could have realistically expected or asked for. But still..."

"I understand," Mai said. She took a deep breath. "Do you want to write the letters, or do you want me to help you?"

"No," he said with a deep breath. "I can do it."

Zuko kept the letters short and simple. He didn't know how anyone else would feel about the news, so he didn't put any emotion in his words. He started with the one for his mother. "I received a letter from the prison warden informing me that your ex husband has passed last night..." He wrote some similar ones to some old friends of the family, and distant cousins.

He saved Azula's letter for last. He wasn't sure at all how to put the news to Azula. Azula and Ozai had been closer that either was to Zuko, but for a father-daughter relationship it was... strange. "Strange" was the most accurate word Zuko could think of. But still, the news would be difficult for Azula to process, and if he made the letter too curt, it would come off as smug, and insensitive to what she had lost. It had been hard work for Zuko to make peace with his sister after all these years, and he didn't want to ruin it.

"I know this isn't easy for you to read," he added to the end of the letter.

* * *

The funeral service took place in the morning only a few days after Zuko received the news. Zuko arrived to it, formally dressed, but with dark circle's under his eyes. He had Mai on one arm, and held Izumi with the other. He looked around the intimate setting he had chosen for the event—a side garden on the palace grounds. A sea of faces that all sort of looked like his, blood relatives he didn't know very well, were the only people in attendance.

Zuko hadn't wanted to hold a service at all, but his advisers had told him a service would be necessary. In fact, one of his advisers had insisted on a public funeral for the entire capital city to attend. The people of the Fire Nation needed closure too, especially those who had still hoped for Ozai's return to the throne. Zuko had chosen a compromise. A private affair, family only, but he had invited scribes to document the ceremony so that it could be disseminated to the public at large.

Zuko got mixed reactions from the cousins. A few patted him on the shoulder expressing sympathy at his loss, a few gave him evil glares for the role he had played in upending the social order, a few shared Mai's joy that the bastard had died, and a few were simply happy for the chance to socialize and drink free alcohol.

Izumi saw a couple children her age playing on the grass, and she wiggled to be free. Zuko put her down and she sprinted off toward her cousins. Although he had told Izumi they were going to a funeral, her understanding of death was infantile. She had seen death during her unsuccesful attepmts to raise those colorful, ill-tempered fish that bred in fire nation rice patties. Her grandmother had taken her to stage plays where characters often died. But the dead fish were always replaced with new ones the next day, and the characters always came back through contrived plot devices. Izumi had no emotions surrounding the funeral whatsoever, and Zuko was perfectly happy with that.

Mai leaned into his ear. "Turn out is bigger than I expected."

Zuko looked around at the chatting relatives and sighed. "We are serving them dinner. I tell you Mai, Fire Nation nobility will flock like starving peasants at the mention of food."

Mai laughed. "It can't be just that, can it?"

"And rice wine too," Zuko added with a sigh. But then he spoke with sincerity. "I think each of them is here for a different reason. But mostly for the same reason we're here: a sense of familial obligation."

Mai wrinkled her eyebrows. "Someone is missing."

Zuko looked at his wife, and he immediately understood her concern. "Where's Azula?"

Zuko broke off from Mai and went to investigate. He bounced around between the guest asking if anyone had seen Azula.

His second cousin Ming finally provided him an answer, in the middle of shoving her face full of sweet rolls. "She's in the washroom."

"This whole time?"

Ming nodded, shrugged and grabbed another roll off the table.

"I guess... I should check on her," Zuko said.

"That..." Ming said, "That might be a bad idea."

Zuko ignored his cousin and ran into the garden house. "Azula?"

A few other female cousins were waiting outside the ladies' room, angry and cross-legged. They had been barred from entering.

Zuko weaved passed them and knocked. "Azula?"

"Who is that?" Azula called out from within.

"It's Zuko. Come on out."

"Why?"

"Because there's a line of people who need to get in there, and... and there are also people who wouldn't mind seeing you and talking to you."

"Tell them to use the men's room."

"Just the people who need to pee? Or the people who want to see you as well?"

"Leave me the hell alone, Zuko."

The full-bladdered party guests made angry faces at the door and went to find another place to meet their needs. It didn't look like she was coming out any time soon.

Zuko took a deep breath. "Fine, you don't have to open the door. Look..." He stared down at his shoes, waiting for words to come to him. He was never good with words. So he picked ones he had heard a million times before from other people. "I know this is hard for you, Azula. I know you're going through a lot."

"You don't know the half of it."

"Yes," he said. "I do."

"Fuck off, Zuko."

"Azula," he sighed. "He was my dad too."

Azula paused. "You didn't love him like I did."

Zuko felt steam coming out of his ears. "Well, that was all a waste, because he didn't love you, that's for sure. He didn't love either of us. I don't see why you never understood that!"

"Oh," Azula said. Her voice got louder. "Is this really the fight you want to have now, Zuko?"

"I don't want to fight. I want you to come out! I want you to talk to me."

"Oh I'll come out," her voice dripped with fury. "I'll talk to you."

The brass handle of the door started to glow hot as it turned. Zuko let go reflexively. Azula shoved the door open.

Azula had gone into the restroom with the intention of staying. She had wiped off her make up, let down her hair, and removed the outer layer of her clothes as well as her shoes. Her lips, cheeks, eyebrows were flushed pink; she had been crying. Only twice in his life had Zuko seen his sister cry.

"I'll tell you exactly what I think." She stepped forward. "I think you killed him."

Zuko stepped back. "Azula you heard what the physician said."

"You killed him." she said. "You killed my dad."

The guests could see the two of them through the window of the garden house. They were beginning to turn heads. They were all too familiar with the drama of Zuko's family. And they were all to familiar with Azula's history as a mental patient. Maybe, after years of hard work toward recovery, she was cracking once again under stress. Azula backed Zuko up to the door. He retreated into the garden. But Azula followed.

"Azula. He had a growth in his lung. It's the same thing that killed Uncle Iroh. I didn't do that to him."

"Yes, but would it have grown in his lung if you hadn't put him in that filthy place, with him breathing all that dirty prison air? Would he have fallen so ill if he wasn't... stressed out and heart broken that his only son betrayed him? That the country he'd worked so hard to serve was being torn apart by dogs like you? Do you think he would have died so young if it weren't for you?"

"He wasn't young, Azula."

"If you hadn't ruined everything, he'd be living out his term in the Palace to a ripe old age. This wouldn't have happened. You killed him, Zuko. As surely as if you had put cyanide in his tea or shot lightning through his heart."

The crowds backed off. Azula's fingertips cracked with electricity. Most of the attending guests were familiar with fire bending, but they still weren't eager to witness Azula's talent up close. Zuko remembered Izumi was just on the other side of the garden. He couldn't let a fight break out in front of her. He had to talk Azula down.

She was furious, and Zuko... couldn't understand it. She had remained loyal till the end. And Zuko thought she was an idiot for it. He wished he could relate to his sister in this moment, but the truth was he didn't. And if he lied to her, she would see right through it.

"Your right," he said. "I don't know the half of it."

She took another step forward. The crowd all gave them another several yards of space.

He continued. "I don't understand why you loved him. I don't understand what you saw in him, that you can come here and cry now that he's dead." Zuko stopped. "Wait. No. I do. I..."

"What the hell are you trying to say!" Azula said. She still looked ready to strike Zuko off the face of the earth. But she was listening at least.

"I understand that you looked up to him. I understand you hung on close to the good moments the two of you had. I understand that pretty much everything you know is stuff he taught you. And he composes fifty percent of what you are. Because that's all true for me too. I still remember the stuff he taught me when we were kids. I still have some good memories of him. I even have to see his face when I look in the mirror. Well, at least half of my face, but... The point is... that's gone now. He's gone. And a part of us went with him. Our history went with him, and so did our chance to ever make things better."

Azula's eyes were welling up again.

"But he was a bastard, Azula. So, no, I can't relate to you right now. I can't cry the way you can. And..." He took a deep breath. "And you know just as much as I do that he was a bastard, and if you are still, after all these years, able to look past that... evil... Maybe its because he spent all those years brainwashing you."

"You don't have to lecture me, Zuko!" Sparks flew from her mouth as she spoke. "I know what he was. I wasn't brainwashed. You know me. You know I'm too smart for that. You know I'm too strong to let someone else have a hold over me like that."

"It's different when it's your parent," he said. "They always have a hold over us, for all of us, in ways other people don't. Or... maybe you saw good in him I didn't. Maybe you have an ability to read people that I don't. But it doesn't matter," he said. "The fact is, he was your dad, and you loved him. And I don't need that to make sense for me to respect it."

Azula didn't say anything in return. The crowd watched anxiously. Mai ran and scooped Izumi up, ready to pull her to safety. Azula looked off to the side with her watery eyes. Her steaming fists cooled. She closed her eyes.

Zuko stepped forward. He put his arm around his sister's shoulder, and she let him. He could feel a change sweep over her body as her emotions released. She fell into his chest, sobbing in earnest.


	5. Chapter 5

Azula sat with Zuko for the rest of the gathering behind the garden house, away from prying eyes and ears.

And she talked, and talked and talked. Years of things she had to get off her chest. She kept going so long Zuko suspected if he walked away she would keep going. But it was his job to listen. And after years of trying to mend his relationship with his sister, it was his honor to do so.

"It changed you know," she said, wiping a bit off salt water off her cheek. "After you left. The first time. After he..." She vaguely motioned to the left side of her face.

Zuko absentmindedly reached for his scar. Before his scar had been something she would tease him about openly, but changing times called for a changing tone, and perhaps a little sensitivity.

"What changed."

"He did. Well. He didn't. Just... How he treated me." She took a couple deep breaths. "The day after you were gone. It was dinner time. And it was him and me. Just the two of us at the table. And I was trying to talk to him, and everything I said. Just... 'no,' 'why are you going on about that,' 'why haven't you done this and this and this.'" Her words spilled out of her mouth quickly. "All those shrinks at the mental hospital, I haven't even talked to them about this."

"What happened?" Zuko said.

She shook her head. "I just looked around, at the table, and I was there by myself with him. And I realized, he needed someone to get mad at. And I was the only one left. You were gone, Mom was gone. It was just me. I had to change too, quickly. If I did my hair wrong or didn't come to fire bending training early enough... I wouldn't hear the end of it for four days. Everything. EVERYTHING, I did wrong was an example of how everything about me was wrong. Each little thing. And... I guess it had always been that way. But it was easier in the past because he was doing it to you too, but... it got worse."

Zuko looked at his sister. He was used to seeing someone who was uncrackable. Azula never cracked. She handled pressure like the toughest steel, and she took it standing up and fighting back. She didn't cry, she didn't let anyone know if there was a problem. But these were extraordinary circumstances. Now she looked so vulnerable. She looked heartbroken, and nervous, and sad. But mostly she looked tired.

"It... it didn't get too much worse, did it?" Zuko said.

She exhaled sharply. Her face went tense. "I have scars too," she said with a cracking voice. "Like yours."

Zuko felt the life drain out of him.

"Well," she continued, "not like yours. I feel like with you, he did it almost on impulse. Like he couldn't control himself. But with me. He was careful. No one could see. It had to be invisible under my clothes. He took me back to our quarters if he had to discipline me. Nobody could see. Because he couldn't let anyone know I wasn't perfect. If I was going to sit on the throne I had to be perfect. I especially had to look perfect. Not one hair out of place."

Zuko sat in stone silence. And suddenly, for the first time in his life, his sister made sense to him. It made sense to him how someone could lose complete and total touch from reality the way she did. It made sense why it had taken her almost ten years to put herself back together. It made sense why someone could carry around so much rage, and work so hard to prevent even the slightest tip of it from showing. But it still made him sick that she had to go through all of it in the first place.

"And I didn't tell you," she said. "Because you would just make it worse for him if you knew, the way you locked him up in there. Maybe you would have tortured him or had him killed or put somewhere even worse. And..." She took a deep breath in, a deep breath out. "I guess, even after all these years, I'm still ashamed of whatever it was he punished me for, even though I have no memory of what. And I still have to keep it a secret, just like it was back then. So that I can be perfect."

She exhaled, and wiped the running eye liner from under her eyes. Zuko felt his stomach twisting into a knot.

"I had always thought the two of you... were... I don't know, close," he said.

She shrugged. "We still were. All of that only happened when I was in trouble."

"Whatever you did to get in trouble, you still didn't deserve it," he said.

"I know," she answered. "I know that. I don't blame myself. I blame him. And it took me a long time, a _long_ time, to realize _he_ was the one who should have acted like an adult. I'm angry at him. But I still miss him. I can't help it. He was my dad. The only one I had. And sometimes he even acted like it."

"Did you ever talk to Mom about this?"

She shook her head. "She would blame herself. Which is fair. She did _leave_ us there after all. Hell, I almost blame her more for what happened than I blame him. But what would it help to tell her now? It wouldn't change anything."

"It might make her treat you a little more fairly," Zuko said.

"We've patched things up just fine, her and I," Azula answered.

"Every time the two of you are in a room a fight breaks out. I'm just saying."

"Don't you dare tell her for me. If she does hear about it, it has to be from me."

"I understand," Zuko said.

They were interrupted at that time. Izumi had wandered away from her mother. "Dad! I got you a sweet roll from the table." She ran up to him and shoved it into his hand, syrup and all, and then sat down next to him. Zuko was glad for the interuption. He was glad that the tone changed when Izumi entered. He was glad that he could almost immediately forget the horrors his sister had just described when he saw his daughter's face. He was glad that Izumi would live in a different world, and he with her.

"Thanks," he told her. "You want half of it?"

She nodded. He split it in half for her, and placed her portion back into her sugary hands.

"You're going to make him fat, Izimi," Azula said, with a small laugh, wiping her eyes.

"It's okay, he's a growing boy," she said, a repetition of something she had heard. "I thought you were hiding, Auntie."

Azula nodded. "I was. But I guess you found us."

"Were you mad?" Izumi said.

Azula opened her arms, and Izumi climbed into them. "Not at you," Azula said.

"You need to come over to our house more often, Auntie," Izumi said. "You need to come today."

Azula let the child sit on her lap. She ran her fingers through Izumi's messy brown hair. Azula hadn't had much of a chance to be a child herself. Zuko had never actually thought his sister capable of relating to one. But she had.

"Today," Azula said. "I'll bring bread for the turtle ducks."

"Good," Izumi said.

"Izumi," Azula said. She looked at Zuko while she spoke. "Do you know what you are? You're what they call a second chance."

That was a good way of describing Izumi, Zuko thought. A second chance, proof the past didn't have to define the future.

"Is that a good thing?" Izumi asked.

"As long as we don't mess up," Zuko said. "But I guess we have a choice about that."


	6. Chapter 6

The kitchen of the Royal palace was empty except for the group of people sitting at the table in its center. The servants had all gone to bed. Zuko remembered how he and Azula would come down here in the middle of the night to steel sweets, until the day their father had caught them. Zuko still got sick to his stomach at the thought of eating after supper, after the punishment he had endured. Even now when the man was gone.

Katara and Aang had found a sitter for their daughter Kya for the night. The two of them were bantering with Sokka over a story they were sure he was making up. Suki was rolling her eyes. Toph interrupted with a quip that stopped them all in their tracks and caused them to burst out laughing.

Zuko's mother had also joined them. The Lady Ursa hadn't elected to go to the funeral service itself, but she knew where she was needed. Zuko needed her. The sight of her sitting next to him caused a wave of relief to wash over his body.

Zuko listened to the conversation, not quite ready to add anything of his own. He had still not taken off his formal clothes from the funeral earlier today. He still had a lot on his mind.

"You remember..." Sokka said. "You remember at the trial, where they had that one general testify for the prosecution?"

Ozai's trial, which had taken place almost ten years ago, had naturally come up in the conversation. The group shared the bits and pieces they each remembered, hoping together they could remember the whole thing, or at least the interesting parts. Zuko did not participate in this.

For Zuko, Ozai's trial had been a long and unpleasant affair. Zuko had flash backs as his friends reminisced. Protestors throwing old fruit at him. Frequent terrorist threats to the court house. The overwhelming guilt over how he, the nation's leader, had so much trouble helping the country heal. The alienation he'd faced from extended family, and their shock he had turned against his own father.

"Oh please!" Toph said. "You're not talking about the 'Spirit Water in the Pipes' guy, are you?"

Sokka slapped the table. "Yeah! Spirit Water guy. And you remember!"

Ursa asked for details. Sokka told the story of a mid-ranking general who'd agreed to testify to the details on certain war crimes. The general however, claimed total ignorance when he finally took the stand.

"He said Water Tribe infiltrators added spirit water to the pipes to make him lose his memory," Sokka said, almost chocking on his own laughter. He'd changed his mind about testifying and didn't have the balls to tell us before they called him up.

Ursa huffed. "Sounds like the whole thing was a real circus. I'm sorry I missed it."

The laughter continued. Zuko stared at the table. Suddenly he felt a hand on his cheek.

"Hey," his mother said. "Are you doing alright?"

The laughter stopped. The table went quiet. Zuko saw his friends all staring at him, except of course for Toph who had her own ways of reading him like a book. They waited for his answer.

He sighed. "I'm fine," he said. "I mean... You guys didn't really have to travel all this way for... this."

"It wasn't that big a deal," Suki said.

"I mean," Zuko rubbed his arm. "I guess it seems a little weird for us all to be gathering around and celebrating someone is dead."

They all wrinkled their eyebrows.

"That is what we're doing, right?" Zuko said, "Celebrating?"

Toph shrugged. "I'm celebrating."

"Well," Aang said. " _Toph_ is celebrating. Toph does whatever the hell she wants."

"Damn right," Toph said.

"But really though..." Aang said. "We came for you."

Katara gave Zuko an unsure smile. "Whether you're happy about this or sad... we know your father's death is probably a lot for you to handle. We didn't want to make you deal with it alone."

Of course they had come for him. Just like his mother, they knew when they were needed. How had he been so lucky to land a group of friends like these?

"Well, this morning I had to tell Azula I couldn't share her tears," Zuko said. "And now I have to tell you I can't share your celebration. I'm sorry. I still haven't really figured out how it is I feel."

Ursa took his hand. "Now slow down for a minute, Zuko. You don't have to figure it out today. It's really okay!"

"I know," he said. "But it's so... confusing. I hate this."

Ursa continued to hold his hand. "When I left your father, I felt confused too." She turned to the group. "I hope your children don't have to experience the end of a marriage. It's really difficult being in a marriage that has to end. And it's really awful when you actually end it. It's not something I recommend."

"You weren't happy to be free of him? I know he treated you poorly," Zuko said.

"I was ecstatic to be free of him," she told him. " I never again had to deal with being controlled or manipulated or intimidated. But it was still a loss. I had to leave a home I had built for myself, and all the friends I had made. I had to leave you and your sister, my children!" She squeezed his hand. "And I had to leave him. I was happy not to have to deal with his behavior, but I no longer had that one person who I could talk to every evening. I had to eat all my meals alone, and wake up every morning in a bed alone. At first, I was so hard on myself. How could I feel happy after I had left my children behind? How could I be so ungrateful as to feel sad when I had been given a chance at a new life? I felt like there was something wrong with me. But I had to take a step back, I had to accept that I felt several things all at once. I didn't have to feel guilty for my feelings, or pit my feelings against each other. I could just feel. And that was how I allowed myself to move forward."

Zuko took a deep breath. "Okay," he told his mother. "I'm... not sure I'm ready for that. I'm still taking this all in." His voice was quaking. He could almost feel water leaking from the corners of his eyes.

Ursa suddenly rubbed her hands together. "I just remembered!" She got up, went across the kitchen and came back with some cups and a bottle. "I bought this in Omashu last winter. My current husband and I aren't big drinkers. But it was there, and it was a good price, and it was supposedly the finest rice wine in the region. So bought it, and I thought today maybe we'd pour a couple ounces out for the old bastard, and enjoy the rest ourselves."

The cups were distributed and filled, except for Toph.

"I beg you guys to go drinking with me. And you don't go, and you're all busy. And then I get pregnant. And you all are like 'you're right, Toph, we all could use a drink!'"

"I thought cops weren't allowed to drink?" Sokka said.

"That's just when we're on the job, idiot. And only if you're not the chief like me who does whatever the hell she wants."

"A model of police ethics," Katara said.

"Hey," Toph said. "I follow all the rules, Katara. That's pretty easy to do when you're the one making them."

"So..." Ursa said. "Whatever did happen to Spirit Water guy?"

Sokka almost choked on his own laugh. "Man, I forgot the best part of the story. The day after he testifies, he gets on a boat, I kid you not, for the United Republic. And by the time he gets there the trial is over, but of course NOW he wants to talk. He finds a news reporter. And he tells them everything! He spills his guts for the guy! Most of it was stuff we already knew, though, so it didn't end up making much of a difference in the trial. But he did drop a couple bomb shells about who was sleeping with whom and who was paying off who and all that stuff."

"Well, I really wish I could remember what the bomb shells were," Aang said. "Because now I'm interested."

"I think the Fire Lord's cousin was involved in one of them," Suki suggested.

"Oh, who can remember," Katara said with a sigh.

Zuko's eyes were drawn to the kitchen doorway. He hadn't expected her to make an appearance. He wasn't sure how everyone else would react to seeing her. Azula had gone to bed earlier, but apparently had wandered downstairs when insomnia had gotten the better of her. She looked like she had been crying again, but her expression now was hard. She came into the kitchen and approached the table, with a slow and heavy step. Without a word she grabbed a cup and poured herself a glass.

Zuko's friends hadn't expected Azula to make an appearance either. And they watched her serve herself a drink in total silence. Azula had tried to kill every single person at the table at one point. Zuko's friends were all vaguely away the siblings had long since made peace, but they hadn't been a part of it.

"What?" Azula said. "Come on. Which cousin was it? Because I saw about fifty of them today, and I'm pretty sure Fat Ass Ming wasn't behind any of those scandals."

Zuko's friends didn't answer.

"She's not that fat," Zuko said, almost under his breath.

"That's what Dad called her," Azula said. She drained her cup, and poured herself another one.

It was Aang who broke the silence among Zuko's friends. "It was something really complicated." He spoke as a sign of peace. He had been the most victimized by Azula out of all of them, and only he had the right to offer it. And he did.

Of course he did, Zuko thought.

"If Katara hadn't been taking notes through the whole affair, I don't think I would have followed any of it," Aang said. "I think it was something about paying these terrorists for false flag operations in the old Colonies, and there was something about-"

"Akio Acne Scars," Azula said "Well, his name is just Akio, but Dad used to call him... Ugh. Idiot wouldn't stop talking about it in meetings right up until the Comet. For Fuck's sake. You guys should have had me testify."

"That would have been hilarious," Zuko said.

Azula shrugged. "I'd have done it."

" _You_ would have testified for the prosecution?" Katara said.

"You guys never asked," Azula said with a shrug. "Oh, whatever, you're right I probably wouldn't have. I was too young and caught up in his brain washing. By my dad, that is. But..." she shrugged again. "I don't know, I might have jumped at the chance to get away from all those shrinks for a few days."

There was another pause.

Zuko thought about what Azula had told him this morning. Azula had been hospitalized during the trial. He had made a point not to let any of the chaos going on in the Fire Nation affect her. But knowing what he knew now, about how their father had treated her, maybe he could have convinced her after all to turn.

The decision to testify was similar to the decision to mourn a person's death, Zuko thought. Both required offering an interpretation of the past. Both required interpreting another person as something good or evil, worthy of love or hate, worthy of persecuting or defending. That was really hard to do when the subject was the person who had raised you from birth and taught you most of what you knew.

The conversation moved on, absentmindedly, like a herd of sheep to greener grass. It was peace time now. They didn't have to worry about all of the turmoil of the past. Katara and Aang were talking about Kya, and giving advice to Toph about baby-proofing the house and handling sleepless nights.

Azula found herself avoiding her mother's gaze. But Mother knew best. She offered the same question to Azula she had offered to her son. "Are you doing alright?"

Azula gave a very slight nod, which Zuko knew to be a lie. She had nearly burned down the garden earlier that morning. She wasn't alright. In fact, Zuko wondered if her old symptoms were coming back. But he didn't say anything. He'd let Azula speak for herself.

"Okay," Ursa said. She knew it was a lie to. "If... you... need to talk."

Azula's eyebrows creased. Anger and pain flashed across her face. "Actually, Mother, I do."

Ursa was surprised by that answer. Azula was anything but open.

"Tomorrow," Azula said. "When no one is else is around, and we're sober, and we've all gotten some sleep. There's actually something I should have told you about a long time ago. All of this has brought up... memories."

The color left Ursa's face, as if she had a feeling what it was about. But she nodded. "We'll do that then."

The sober moment between mother and daughter contrasted with a roar of laughter that burst from the rest of the table over something Suki had said.

It was at that point that Sokka pointed out that no one had done a toast.

"Do we need one?" Aang said.

"Of course we don't," Sokka said. "But we're all here."

"To what?" Katara said.

Zuko raised his cup. "Well, I think I have an idea."

Zuko at this point, suffered a scattering of ideas, none of which fit together or made any sense. He still was plagued with self doubt. Had he done everything he could to keep his family together? Had he even done the right thing by trying? He didn't understand Azula's tears or his friend's celebration, though perhaps he could empathize. It was overwhelming, because Zuko hadn't the slightest idea of how he felt, or how he would feel tomorrow.

But his mother was right. It didn't matter that he didn't know. He had time to figure it out. It was okay that he felt anger toward the man who'd scarred his face, and okay that he felt love toward the man who had raised him. He'd allow himself to feel joy he'd never have to hear his father's voice again, and sadness that someone who had shaped his past, a piece of himself, was gone. He'd could feel anger at what Azula had suffered, sadness his family would never be at peace the way he'd hoped for as a small child, relief he no longer felt pressure to fix what was wrong. He could feel all of that.

And he could have a little compassion for himself in the mean time.

And he knew exactly what they should toast to.

He took one of the cups and held it up. "To... the end of an era. A rotten one, but we wouldn't be where we are today without it."

They all could drink to that.


End file.
